Nicola Vassell. Image courtesy Nicola Vassell. Photo: Luigi Cazzaniga.
Few people in the art world have had a career as complex as Nicola Vassell’s.
After leaving Jamaica for New York in the late ’90s to pursue a career as a fashion model and culture writer, Vassell landed some of the art industry’s most coveted roles, including directorial positions at Deitch Projects and Pace gallery, two New York art-world institutions.
While at Deitch, Vassell worked with then-emerging artists such as Sterling Ruby and Dan Colen to curate “Substraction,” an exhibition chronicling the grit of New York life post-9/11, while also overseeing the careers of artists like Kehinde Wiley, Tauba Auerbach, and Nari Ward. At Pace, she worked with the likes of Adam Pendleton, Robert Irwin, and Raqib Shaw.
Brazil is going through a Black renaissance. Queer Afro-Brazilians are not just part of Brazil s Black Renaissance - they re innovating it. Groups formerly at the margins of Brazil are gaining visibility within the media. From the rise of musical sensations like Liniker and Linn da Quebrada to the popularity of social spaces like Batekoo and Afrobapho, the visibility of Black LGBTQ individuals is indisputable.
Batekoo, Photo by Vicky Grout
However, this visibility is juxtaposed with escalating violence towards the community. The election of President Jair Bolsonaro and his state-sanctioned homophobia, along with the untimely assassination of Marielle Franco, a queer-feminist councilwoman transforming human rights in Rio, remind us of Brazil’s history of violence and discrimination of Black queer bodies. Despite the sociopolitical tension, queer Afro-Brazilian youth are leading important conversations about what it means to be Black and queer in Brazil.